that it would take a whole book to record them. 
We should have to tell of the day late in the au- 
tumn when the,leaders seemed to lose their way 
and the whole company grew weary from lack of 
food and water, and how at length they settled 
in a little stream that ran through a gloomy 
pine forest among high mountains. Widgeons 
never feed if they can help it except on broad, 
open flats, but this time they felt forced to alight 
in this rocky forest stream. Scarcely had they 
begun to swim about when a deer coming down 
to drink gave them such a fright that one poor 
bird broke its wing by flying against a limb. 
Then we should have to learn of the time that 
a coyote by a snap to the right and left caught 
two of them as they sat asleep on a little sand 
spit that ran out from shore on a large shallow 
river; of the time that a falcon gave chase and 
struck down one of their number as it fled with 
all the swiftness it could command; and of that 
cloudy night when, while flying low, another: was 
killed by striking a telegraph wire. 
For the main part, however, the losses to their 
company were due to men whom they encoun- 
232 
